Sunday, December 6, 2009

#12 Playing the Piano

Every BYU student THINKS they play the piano well enough to show off once in a while.

Get used to a whole lot of choppy John Schmidt and Fur Elise.

While there is merit in mastering the timeless instrument, BYU kids only dabble in piano enough so that when they are feeling awkward at a church social or house party they can sit down at a piano bench and whip out a solo to impress the previously-uninterested member of the opposite sex. If you are ever the target of this ploy, do not ask the faux piano player to play more than two songs. They do not know more than two, and you will have shunned their advances by requesting such a thing from them.

If you do not enjoy hearing the same standard tunes plunked on a piano, do not sit in the WILK Terrace. Every so often, a piano is placed conveniently (or sadistically—take your pick) in that area. BYU students see this piano as the perfect medium to send out their mating call. Girls and boys alike sit down and plug through Hymns, Canon in D, John Schmidt, Les Miserables, Fur Elise, Janice Kapp Perry, and anything else they had the patience to learn and memorize by ear. These students are sure that this public display of incredible talent will find them an eternal companion. Who wouldn’t want to strike up a conversation with an individual that is interrupting everyone’s lunch and study time with missing sharps and flats?

If you are curious as to how the entire BYU population learned to play the piano (sort of), please observe the following:

Boys serve missions. Really, did you think they were tracting ALL the time?

Girls take piano lessons. Mom, in an effort to raise a perfect future wife and homemaker, sent her daughter to the neighbors at age 5 to learn a finer skill. Too bad the neighbor was just a BYU alumni who graduated knowing two pieces and some hymns.

BYU students have roommates. BYU kids go to the first Sunday in their freshman ward, and are suddenly aware of just how talented, smart, and accomplished everyone else is. Quickly they beg their piano performance roommate to teach them a few things. The lessons only continue until the BYU student has found a NCMO or realized the value of an impressive pre-status major.

BYU students spend the first 18 years of their life in Primary, Young Womens/Mens, Seminary, Sacrament Meeting, Mutual. If they can’t play "Sweet Hour of Prayer," "If You Could Hie to Kolob," and “Abide With Me” by ear, they must’ve slept through adolescence.

Considering you are new to this culture, I recommend you find a piano and a YouTube tutorial quickly. You don’t want to be the only one without a mating call.

I love that guy that plays songs from Nintendo 64's Zelda: Ocarnia of Time. I can't imagine any other way to better enjoy my made-at-home tunafish sandwich than to eat it while listening to Epona's Song.

Anonymous? Is that really you? I just love your great quotes. I have read hundreds of them. In fact, you have been quoted by some of my favorite authors and speakers. Oh, and yes, the blogger puts herself right in the middle of this melange of BYU humanity. However, she does see it all with more humor and perspicacity than most. She has a heart, and a brain, and most importantly, a well developed and desert-dry funny bone. Get one.

Ethan, sorry to disappoint you, but I have never seen an episode of the Simpsons. It has just been one of my favorite words for a few decades. As one of my friends recently said: "Do not confuse perspicacity with perspicuity."